Review: Seven Stills of San Francisco Whipnose Whiskey

The Seven Stills of San Francisco returns with its second beer-based whiskey, this time pot-distilled from 1600 gallons of double IPA from Pacific Brewing Laboratories along with some maple sugar. The beer is then aged in new, five-gallon American oak barrels for six months before bottling.

As with Chocosmoke, this is a young and wild little whiskey. Bright amber in color, the whiskey exudes a complex arrangement of citrus, hoppy spices, menthol, mothballs, and wildflowers on the nose. The body is big and racy, its youthful grain character punched up with even more of those citrus-driven hops, vanilla syrup, and eucalyptus. Powerful and lasting, this is another whiskey that really lets its brewery roots come through. Like Chocosmoke, it’s not for the faint of heart or the delicate of tongue, and it invites endless exploration into a truly unique style of distilling.